C Sharp Excel Library

CSharp Excel Library

Excel Library is an open source csharp API for reading and writing Excel files (.xls) without using COM interop and OLEDB connection. This library is very much useful for doing server side processing of Excel Sheets where Microsoft office might not be installed. This Library is originally created and hosted here. But this library has not been updated for a long time. When we first tried this library, we found few issues in the library, like formatting not being maintained while saving modified excel files. Hence we have modified the source code of the library and we have provided it to you for using it.

Disclaimer : We are NOT the original creators of this library. E-Infotainment is by no means related to http://code.google.com/p/excellibrary. If you have any issues, you can ask to us in our forum. But we cannot guarantee a Fix or Update.


Why do we need this library ?
There are few other ways by which we can work with excel files in C Sharp. Few ways are using COM Interop, OLEDB connection (using JET Drivers). But here are few reasons why we need this kind of library,
1) When we need server side processing of Excel sheets, we cannot guarantee that the Office been installed in the Server. Office is a primary requirement for using the COM Interop.
2) If the server is a 64 bit server machine, JET drivers are not available.
3) Many third party excel library components are available, but they are COSTLY.

What are the modifications done on the original library?
1) We have modified the library to maintain the Formatting of Cells
2) Visibility of Worksheets is no more ignored
3) We have added a Test Windows Forms application for illustrating the usage of this library.

What we can do with this library?
1) Create a Excel Sheet from a DataSet/DataTable. ie, Export to Excel
2) Create a DataSet/DataTable from an Excel Sheet. ie, Import from Excel
3) Modify Excel Sheet cell values programmatically.

What we cannot do with this library (as of now)?
1) Merged cells cannot be maintaineed in modified library
2) Cannot apply or modify styles/formats of particular cells
3) It doesnt yet support Excell 2007 (.xlsx) open XML format.

There might be many problems that I am not aware of, as this library is not complete. However I still find this library pretty much sufficient for working with datasets and datatable and exporting them to Excel.